1 Eurozone weakness continues (BBC) More evidence of
economic weakness in the eurozone has come from the latest retail sales figures
and a survey of business growth. Retail sales in the 18-nation bloc fell 1.3%
in September from August, official data from the Eurostat statistics agency
showed.
The Eurostat figures show that Germany,
traditionally the driver of eurozone growth, suffered the biggest fall in
retail sales, down 3.2% for the month. The next biggest fall was in Portugal,
down 2.5%. Rises in retail sales came only in smaller eurozone countries, such
as Malta, Luxembourg and Austria.
Meanwhile, Markit's composite PMI reading, based on
surveys of thousands of companies across the eurozone, edged up from 52 to just
52.1. Although any reading above 50 indicates expansion, October's minimal rise
was smaller than economists had hoped for. "The eurozone PMI makes for
grim reading, painting a picture of an economy that is limping along and more
likely to take a turn for the worse than spring back into life," said
Chris Williamson, Markit's chief economist.
The European Commission has predicted that the
eurozone would grow by just 0.8% this year. The forecast is below the 1.2%
estimate the commission made in spring. It also cut its growth forecast for
2015 to 1.1% from 1.7%.
2 Downward mobility on the rise (Patrick Butler in
The Guardian) More people are moving down, rather than up, the social ladder as
the number of middle-class managerial and professional jobs shrinks, according
to an Oxford University study.
The experience of upward mobility – defined as a
person ending up in an occupation of higher status than their father – has
become less common in the past four decades, the study says, leaving children
of those who benefited from it with worse prospects than their parents had.
Dr John Goldthorpe, a co-author of the study and
Oxford sociologist, said: “For the first time in a long time, we have got a
generation coming through education and into the jobs market whose chances of
social advancement are not better than their parents, they are worse.”
The UK’s boom in managerial and professional level
public services and industrial jobs during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s saw an
increase in the proportion of children born into professional and managerial
families. The decline in these jobs meant that the number of individuals at
risk of downward mobility were higher. Goldthorpe added: “The emerging
situation is one for which there is little historical precedent and that
carries potentially far-reaching political and wider social implications.”
Society needed to actively renew its stock of “top
end” jobs if it did not want consign graduates to lower level jobs than their
parents, said Goldthorpe. “We need a high-tech sector and a high-powered public
sector to create demand for people with qualifications.”
3 Europe loses 421m birds in 30 years (Khaleej
Times) Europe has an estimated 421 million fewer birds than three decades ago,
and current treatment of the environment is unsustainable for many common
species, a study has shown. The population crash is related to modern farming
methods and the loss and damage of habitats, according to the study published
in science journal Ecology Letters.
The study found that about 90 per cent of the
decline occurred in the most common bird species, including grey partridges,
skylarks, sparrows and starlings. Meanwhile the population of some rarer birds
had increased in recent years, likely due to conservation efforts and legal
protections.
Such a decline in common birds is concerning as “it
is this group of birds that people benefit from the most”, according to
University of Exeter researcher Richard Inger. The scientists estimated the
loss of bird populations by analysing data on 144 species of European birds,
collected from surveys in 25 countries, often by voluntary fieldworkers.
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